


Dear Mr. Holmes:

by TaPanda



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Leaving messages, M/M, Sad, slight romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaPanda/pseuds/TaPanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dear Mr. Holmes: Please, can you help me locate my best friend? Everyone tells me he’s gone, but I just can’t believe it.  Mr. Holmes, I know if anyone can find him it has to be you.  Please Mr. Holmes, I just want to be with my best friend again. –JW</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Mr. Holmes:

_Dear Mr. Holmes: Please, can you help me locate my best friend? Everyone tells me he’s gone, but I just can’t believe it. Mr. Holmes, I know if anyone can find him it has to be you. Please Mr. Holmes, I just want to be with my best friend again. –JW_

“You’re the first person to make him smile like that in a long time.”  
“Excuse me, but what?” Said a very confused John Watson. He folded his hands together on top of the table, leaning forward. “I haven’t even known him for a week.”  
Mycroft allowed himself a slight smirk. “It’s interesting, you know, Dr. Watson. I don’t think he’s been this comfortable with another person in years.”  
“Comfortable? No, n- Sherlock and I are just flatmates, nothing more.” John flinched back in his seat slightly.  
“If you say so, Dr. Watson. However, I advise you to keep my words in mind, okay?” Mycroft stood up, holding out his hand to shake that of the shorter males. Upon shaking, the elder Holmes strode quickly out of the room, leaving John to sit on those words.

_Dear Mr. Holmes: Please, can you help find my best friend? He’s tall, has dark curly hair. White male, very brilliant. More brilliant than most of us could ever hope to be. Please Mr. Holmes, if anyone can find him, it would be you. –JW_

“John, can you get my phone for me?” Sherlock was fingers deep in a human brain, scalpel in one hand expertly cutting out small slices. He placed these samples in test tubes.  
“Oh hell Sherlock, what are you doing? The kitchen isn’t a place to dissect a brain!” He closed the newspaper he was reading somewhat in a huff and made his way to the kitchen. After a few moments of searching, he squinted at the taller male. “Where is your phone exactly?”  
“In my pants pocket. Hurry now, I need to send out a message once you get it.” John rolled his eyes, reaching into Sherlock’s pocket. “Jesus John, not in my front pocket, what kind of a man do you take me for?” John sighed and shoved his hand in the back pocket, looking away.  
“I know we share a flat, Sherlock, but there are certain things people shouldn’t do for each other. One of these things should be reaching into your back pocket for you phone.” He fished out the phone and held it out to the other man. “Your phone.”  
Sherlock waved the hand with the scalpel vaguely. “Send a text to Lestrade. Tell him the killer is the young man who launders for him.”  
“Murderer?” John asked, incredulous. He started the text anyway. “’Murderer is young laundry man. –SH.’ Does that work?” Sherlock nodded and John sighed again, putting the phone down on the table beside Sherlock. “I have no idea what you talk about sometimes.” He muttered to the room as he walked back over to his chair and grabbed his newspaper.  
“What, they’re having an affair, isn’t it obvious?” Sherlock asked him, cocking his head at John slightly.  
“I don’t even know what case you’re talking about. Lestrade hasn’t even talked to us about any sort of murder for a week.”  
“He was going to today.” Sherlock said, deftly slicing another sliver of brain.  
“And how could you tell that? The quietness of the street below?” John rolled his eyes and opened his paper noisily.  
Sherlock glanced over at John, who was using the paper as a shield to block the other male. He smirked slightly as he glanced at the front page. Murder of young stock broker still unsolved’ blazed on the lower half of the page in a side column. Sherlock chuckled. “Oh, something like that.”

_Dear Mr. Holmes: I miss my best friend so dearly. I didn’t think I could ever miss someone this much. I haven’t missed someone this much ever before. Not relatives, not friends I lost in the war. Mr. Holmes, I just want to know that my friend is okay. Everyone keeps telling me to forget him but I know I can’t. Something tells me that I can still find him. Please Mr. Holmes, if you could even show me a hint that my friend is alive, that would be enough. –JW_

It wasn’t Sherlock’s fault that John had bombs strapped on him, that he was used as a pawn in his game with Moriarty, but the taller male still treated him delicately for the next few days.  
“Sherlock, seriously I’m fine. I’ve been in near death experiences before. None that involved me as a hostage, but that’s not really the point here. I’m completely fine, you know that.” John handed the other male some tea and sat down at the couch, turning on the television.  
“Yes, but John.” Sherlock closed his book and turned to face him. “John, I really, truly am sorry. If I knew it would have gotten that out of hand…”  
“Out of hand? People were killed Sherlock! A child was tortured.” John put his teacup down, slightly aggravated. “Be sorry for everyone, not just me.”  
“I am sorry, for all of that.” He took a sip of tea and sighed. “But John, I mean it. They were just people. If I had lost you…” He grew quiet.  
John sighed, speaking softly. “I understand, Sherlock. Thank you.”

_Dear Mr. Holmes: I know you can find my best friend. If anyone can ever find him, it’s you. I know I keep sending you these messages, but I just don’t think you can be ignoring them. Not from me, not from… Look, I just would really like to be with my best friend again, sod it all! I don’t know how much longer I can continue going on without going crazy. –JW_

“John, is it just me or are the people coming in with cases getting stupider?” Sherlock asked, looking up from his latest requests on his laptop.  
“I think it’s the latter, for once.” He glanced over at the taller male from where he sat, typing on his computer. “Though maybe you shouldn’t say things of the sort in front of clients, hmm Sherlock?”  
His light eyes quickly scanned the couch again. “Oh, not you I mean.” He quickly said to the woman on the couch. She pressed her mouth together slightly.  
“Mr. Holmes, I expected you to wear that hat of yours.” She asked, fishing for some sort of common ground.  
“It’s not my hat.” He responded snippily. She glanced at her hands, then tried again.  
“Do you want to hear my case for you then?” She asked.  
“Oh, by all means, start.” Sherlock said, spinning to face her.  
“Well, I think my husband is having an affair, and-”  
“He is.” Sherlock spun back to his computer, looking at the list of other case requests. His phone went off, and he glanced at it. He stood up and moved to grab his coat. To John, he said “It’s Lestrade. He wants us at the station.” To the woman, “Good day, I suspect you have to go find a divorce lawyer now. Don’t go much out of your price range, there’s no need.” With that, he closed his computer and pulled on his coat.  
John stood up, clearing his throat. “Yes, he’s always like that. I’ll see you out.”

_Dear Mr. Holmes: I miss you. Damnit Sherlock, I miss you so much. I wake up every day hoping I’ve been dreaming this past, just to be slapped with reality again. People keep telling me to move on, to try and get a girlfriend or find a new flatmate, but I can’t. They don’t realize how much you meant to me. I wonder if you realize how much you meant to me. But please Sherlock, please. Be alive. Come back. –JW_

Adler cocked her head slightly, smirking at John. “You two really are a couple, you know.” Sherlock had just walked out of the room to grab a book from his own.  
“What, no we aren’t!” John said, suddenly busying himself with straightening papers on his own desk. “I’ve already denied that possibility to you before, remember?”  
She smiled lightly. “You may not think you’re gay, but I am not so easily convinced. You hang on his every word, you watch his every movement even when you don’t think you are. I don’t care what you call that, but from where I stand, I’d call that a man in love.”  
John stood a little more stiffly, staring back at her. “Even if that were true, that wouldn’t make us a couple.”  
She crossed her legs slightly, placing her elbow on her knee, and leaned her back towards it, cupping her face so two of her fingers crossed over her lips. “Oh? I don’t think you realize it, but he often does the same thing for you.”  
John scoffed. “What? No he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Sherlock? No… he likes to do that with everyone.”  
She leaned back slightly. “If you think so. Trust me, I can tell when a man is in love.” Sherlock reappeared with the book.  
“It took me a while to find it, but here it is. I’m afraid I had it buried under a stack of botany guides.” His eyes flitted between the woman and John. “What were you two talking about?”  
John’s mouth gaped open a little as he tried to find the words to respond. The brunette woman just smiled slightly and responded. “Just small talk, Mr. Holmes, nothing more.”  
Sherlock looked at the two of them, puzzled for a few seconds, and flipped open the book, scanning it for whatever page had the information he wanted.

_Dear Mr. Holmes: Every day gets more painful. Donovan is convinced that I’m pining over your death like some heartbroken teenage girl. She’s stopped telling me I should never have gotten close to you. I don’t think she can bear to see me in that much pain anymore.  
I think Donovan might be correct about the pining. –JW_

John Watson came into the flat late one night. “Sherlock, Sherlock I’m back from the scene.” He paused, seeing the man asleep in his chair, face pushed against his shoulder painfully, more than half the lights on in the room. John sighed, walking into Sherlock’s room. He grabbed a pillow from his bed and a blanket from the foot of the bed.  
He tucked the blanket around Sherlock and gently lifted his head to place the pillow beneath his head. Still not that great of an angle for his head, but much more comfortable than it would have been had he not done anything, though his neck would still be sore in the morning.  
John walked into the kitchen, brewing a cup of tea. He glanced at the clock, which read 1:53 AM. Christ, it was late. John finished making his tea and brought it to the living room. He grabbed a novel he had been trying to read from the coffee table and sat in a chair opposite Sherlock. He read it for a few minutes, sipping his tea, then put the book down.  
He stared at Sherlock for a bit, the mass of curls, the high cheekbones, the dark thick eyelashes. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep, and so innocent as well. John felt himself smiling, and he finished his tea quietly, just staring at the sleeping man in front of him.  
He placed his teacup down in the sink and went back to turn the light off in the room so Sherlock could sleep. As if on a whim, he walked quietly over to the man and reached out, stroking his cheek lightly with the back of two of his fingers. John pulled them back quickly and walked down to his room, fingers tingling.

_Dear Mr. Holmes: My therapist found out I was sending these messages. She wants me to stop but this is the only lifeline I have to you, Sherlock. Something tells me that you’re alive and something tells me I have to search for you. Come back, Sherlock. It must be as excruciating for you as it is for me. I don’t know what else to say. My heart hurts every time I think of you. –JW_

The H.O.U.N.D. case wasn’t the first one where Sherlock and John shared a bed. It wasn’t the first time when people thought the two of them were dating. But John thought maybe it was the first time that he was really comfortable with the arrangement. Before, he would have at least asked for a second bed, a roll-out or a room with a pull-out couch, or just a regular couch before giving up.  
That time though, and all the times after that, he stopped trying to get things to change. He stopped complaining if he had to share a bed with Sherlock, and instead snuggled down on his side as soon as the lights were off. Or at least, that’s what he’d do for the first few times.  
After that, he’d talk to Sherlock before going to sleep. They would talk about the case they were on, or make fun of the people they were working with. Later, they used the time to talk about the small things. The taller male seemed a lot more talkative when he was tired, and much more willing to talk about personal things in his life.  
John didn’t face Sherlock at first, for he thought it was too weird. But the more times it happened, the more used to sleeping in the same bed with the other male he got. He started to face Sherlock when they would talk, and sometimes would drift off to sleep facing that way. One time when it got too cold, he woke up to find himself burrowed against Sherlock’s side for warmth. The curly haired male’s arms were wrapped around the doctor, and he found it to be… comfortable.  
Later, he would gladly accept Sherlock’s company in his bed, if only to “save money on the heating bill” or because the power was out and it would get cold. They would wake up in each other’s arms, but neither of them would talk about it. It was an unspoken thing that just happened between the two of them, and that worked for them.  
A lot of things seemed to work for them that would never work for other people. But their bond was close, special. Nothing could tear it, and things that should only brought them closer together. 

_Dear Mr. Holmes: The more you’re gone, the more I try and figure out what our relationship was. I can’t catalogue it, not in the normal sense. Best friends is a given. But it was more than that. I hardly thought of anyone else when I wanted to share some experience with someone, I barely even remembered other people existed sometimes when we were together. I dropped dates for you, even just to make sure you were okay when you were upset. Everything and everyone else started to look less appealing than being with you. I didn’t realize it at the time, just how important you were to my life. So many people were convinced we were together, or one of us liked the other, or that we were both in love with each other. I don’t know what else we were anymore. I know it wasn’t just best friends. And I know that maybe, the more I look back at it, my feelings may have been a little more than platonic. This is probably a horrible request for a search, and I’m sorry. Just, please Sherlock, please get back to me. –JW_

John heard the words, but he couldn’t believe them.  
“This phone call, it’s my note. That’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note.” Sherlock was visibly crying. John could see that, even from the distance he was at. He could see the shake of Sherlock’s hand as he held it towards him.  
“Leave a note when?” John felt the tears already in his eyes, the tightening of his throat.  
“Goodbye John.”  
“Nope. Don’t…” The end of the line went dead and he watched through hazy vision. The brilliant male threw his cell phone behind him, swallowing.  
“Sherlock!” John managed to yell before he spread his arms, and jumped. John ran to the scene, but was impeded. He was hit by that bike, that damned stupid bloody bike, and he was too late. By the time he got there paramedics were already swarming around him. Everything was hazy, in a fog. John half expected himself to be dreaming, but the shock felt too raw, too real for that to be true.  
“I’m a doctor, let me come through! Let me come through please!” They tried to push him out of the way, tried to keep him away from Sherlock, the pool of blood dark and so real on the concrete. “No, he’s my friend. He’s my friend! Please!” He could hear his own voice crack, and it sounded so foreign. He managed to feel for a pulse, but his own blood was pounding so furiously he wasn’t able to tell. Sherlock’s hand fell limply against the ground as John was pushed back.  
He watched as some of the paramedics picked up Sherlock, his Sherlock, and placed him on a gurney. He wanted to stand, he wanted to go after them and make them go away and be with his Sherlock. He vaguely remembered talking to the people, resting his head on someone, but he couldn’t tell you the names or faces.  
His eyes followed Sherlock as they quickly wheeled him inside, leaving John by himself.  
His expression was blank, his eyes dry.

_Dear Mr. Holmes… Dear Mr. Holmes… Dear Mr. Holmes…  
Dear Mr. Holmes: I love you, Sherlock. Don’t be dead. Please, just come back to me. –JW_

Doctor Watson hadn’t been out to Sherlock’s grave. It was too painful. He finally did make it out, though, with Mrs. Hudson. He still hadn’t been able to get back to the flat and clear up any loose ends. She left him shortly so he could pay his respects to his best friend in peace.  
He talked to the gravestone. Finally, “please, there’s just one more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t… be…” His voice cracked as the final word left his mouth. “Dead.” He took a long breath. “Would you do that, just for me?” His voice was barely a whisper. “Just stop it, stop this?” He balled his hands, staring down at his shoes. Deep breaths, Watson, don’t need to break down in a cemetery. He briefly covered his hands with his eyes, then looked at the grave, recovered. He nodded and walked stiffly, but quickly away.  
It was painful. It was so empty, so alone without Sherlock.

_Dear Mr. Holmes: Please. –JW_

Two hands deftly typed in the name of a website. Two eyes scanned the contents of the messages. The hands rummaged in a coat pocket briefly and pulled out a mobile phone. The owner slowly typed out a message, hands shaking. After deliberating a few seconds, they hit send.  
Two brilliantly light eyes looked up from the computer screen, blinking back tears. A hand ran through thick curly hair, and the man took a haggard breath.

_Dear Dr. Watson: And I, you. –SH_

**Author's Note:**

> I am not ashamed to confess I actually cried when writing this piece. I really put myself in John's shoes when I watch "The Reichenbach Fall" and this flashed through my head one of the times I was watching it. The dialogue in the end is the actual dialogue from the episode. I watched it over three times to make sure I was getting it correct.  
> If you think there could be any changes, please leave a comment, thanks!


End file.
